I understand the failure to launch part that modern parenting contributes to. However, from personal experience, I do not believe it is only limited to American-born parents. I grew up with a lot of Chinese/Indian/Korean immigrant families around (which are among the most "successful" immigrants in America in terms of wealth and educational attainment).
We grew up with high expectations to study hard, go to a top university, get a 6-figure job, and start a family in the suburbs. Throughout years 4-18 our parents told us "You will do X, Y, and Z because these are the ingredients that worked for us to live a good life in America, so this is what will work for you."
While this does a good job providing structure, it doesn't take the individual into account. So many of my friends from immigrant families came out of college wondering "Now what?" because being a person was new to them in the sense that they had to figure out what to do with their life once things were no longer as pre-determined.
This created a new wave of 'failure to launch' where 20-somethings found themselves living at home trying to figure out what to do, or working down a path of some job they hate because their parents wanted them to do it. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is a good way to describe the situation.
"You can do anything" is a troublesome parental mindset to establish, but so is a mindset of "You can't do this because this is not one of the 5 jobs we believe is best for you". For example, my 25y.o. Chinese female friend is just now getting into CompSci (what she is good at) after dropping out of pharmacy school (her parents goal for her because "you are a girl, you should be a pharmacist or a dentist").
The pleasing-the-parents issue is one that affects every family, since there are all kinds of hidden sociocultural expectations that tend to start being confronted near the end of the educational years and the start of career building and family formation. It's expressed more strongly in this time period because the job market has quickly reshaped itself around computing, and the traditionally safe options for young people are drying up while new aspirational fantasies like "become a pro Fortnite player" or "become a cryptocurrency baron" are working their way in.
And it isn't just a generation gap - a whole set of institutions are like this, motivating the popular "Millenials killed tradition" genre of journalism. And for the Millenial generation that amounts to having to reinvent each institution in a new form. Not an ambition anyone particularly signed up for, but one where the jobs are now.
We grew up with high expectations to study hard, go to a top university, get a 6-figure job, and start a family in the suburbs. Throughout years 4-18 our parents told us "You will do X, Y, and Z because these are the ingredients that worked for us to live a good life in America, so this is what will work for you."
While this does a good job providing structure, it doesn't take the individual into account. So many of my friends from immigrant families came out of college wondering "Now what?" because being a person was new to them in the sense that they had to figure out what to do with their life once things were no longer as pre-determined.
This created a new wave of 'failure to launch' where 20-somethings found themselves living at home trying to figure out what to do, or working down a path of some job they hate because their parents wanted them to do it. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is a good way to describe the situation.
"You can do anything" is a troublesome parental mindset to establish, but so is a mindset of "You can't do this because this is not one of the 5 jobs we believe is best for you". For example, my 25y.o. Chinese female friend is just now getting into CompSci (what she is good at) after dropping out of pharmacy school (her parents goal for her because "you are a girl, you should be a pharmacist or a dentist").